iDraw a Heart in the Sand
by Angelic Guardian
Summary: Maybe it'll make more sense to her if she sees it written down. Oneshot. Post-iOMG.


**Author's Note:** Simple concept. Kinda sad. I dunno. I just hope you like it.**  
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**Disclaimer:** iCarly © Dan Schneider

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><p>Her chest felt incredibly heavy as she drew in a deep, deep breath, holding it for a moment, before she simply let it out in a long gush of air through her lips. She swung lazily back and forth, her feet just barely touching the ground. The sun was rising behind her, casting a warm glow across her pale skin and golden hair.<p>

A spike of heat suddenly rushed through her, and she lifted her head as a result of it, clenching the rusty metal handlebars in each of her hands. She kicked her legs out in front of her and began pumping them, back and forth, back and forth. Soon, she was flying high towards the still dark sky, then back towards the rising sun, her hair whipping behind her as she flew.

She could hear the squeaking noise of the handles as she pumped her legs, swinging like a 6-year-old girl without a care in the world. As she pumped harder, feeling the strong breeze blowing against her face, she began to feel exhilarated. Free.

Her hands tightened around the rusty bars as a look of determination suddenly crossed her features. She could feel her heart pumping, like her legs, as if in a matching rhythm. She hadn't realized just how high she was swinging now, until she felt her head fleetingly brush against the leaves of a tall tree that was right behind her. Somehow, the sound of the leaves rustling when she hit them ignited something deep within her, and she found herself unable to resist the temptation any longer.

And so, with one final hard pump of her legs, as her swing began moving forward again, she let her wild spirit take over, and she jumped off the swing.

She went flying in the air, and as she did, she counted in her head.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

Four sec—

She tried to land on her feet, but instead she came crashing down on the sand-covered ground head first. A low, painful grunt escaped her throat as her legs, stomach and elbows collided into the rough sand. She clamped her eyes shut and winced, suddenly feeling so ridiculously stupid.

God, _why_ did she just do that?

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Just like kissing Freddie about five and a half hours ago seemed like a good idea at the time.

She felt that familiar ache shooting through her, but this ache had nothing to do with the fact that she'd just hit the ground. No, this was much more painful than that. It was…it kind of felt like…

Well, she didn't know for sure, but if she didn't know any better, she was pretty sure that this was what getting your heart broken felt like.

She gritted her teeth together as she pushed herself up with her hands. She got to her feet, hastily brushing the dirty sand off her red and white striped shirt. She held out her arm to examine her elbow. Just a couple of scratches, she noted. No permanent damage.

If only she could say the same thing about her relationship with Freddie.

_'Don't you dare cry, Puckett,'_ she immediately warned herself. _'Your tears aren't worth crying over that pathetic little nub.'_

She kicked at the gravelly, sandy ground, watching as it flew a few inches forward before showering back down to the ground. She really didn't know why she was here right now, at some deserted, worn-out playground, when she could be at home, lying in her nice warm bed.

_'Like I'd even be able to sleep, though,'_ she realized.

Not sure what to do with herself, she decided to pop a squat, right there on the ground. She crossed her legs and rested her elbow on one of them, her cheek pressing against her palm.

_'I have to get over him,'_ she suddenly concluded. There was no other way around it. He obviously didn't feel the same way about her, judging by that deeply shocked look he had on his face after she'd kissed him way, _way_ longer than was necessary.

All of a sudden, her sadness was once again replaced with anger. This was _exactly_ the reason why she never told anyone about her stupid secret crush on Freddie in the first place. She should've just ignored Carly about that whole 'make a move' nonsense. What did _she_ know, anyway? She had never faced rejection before. If anything, _she_ was the one constantly breaking guys' hearts rather than the other way around. 'Cause she was Carly. So perfect and sweet and likeable.

_'No wonder Freddie's in love with her,'_ she thought bitterly.

Why couldn't Freddie just see that beneath all the name-calling and beatings and teasing and pranks and rudeness was a girl who really, truly…

_'Ugh, no, I'm not gonna say it,'_ she thought. _'Even if his stupid computer app said it. Like I'm really gonna trust something _he_ came up with.'_

Still, she couldn't help but wonder…_was_ it really true? She'd always thought her so-called feelings for Freddie were nothing more than some stupid little high school crush. Not some full-blown, heart-wrenching, sickening sweet…

No, she still wouldn't say it. Because that wasn't what it was. She knew it. She _didn't_ feel that strongly towards him. It was a dumb crush. Nothing more. She'd get over it.

_'But…is getting rejected by a crush seriously supposed to hurt this much?'_ she wondered.

She could feel her stomach churning, and she knew that it wasn't from hunger, but from that disgusting, girly, cliché, warm, fluttery feeling of _butterflies._

_'God, what is _wrong_ with me?'_ she shouted in her mind.

She'd never felt this way before. Ever. About anyone. And it frustrated her beyond belief, because she knew that she couldn't control whatever it was that she was feeling. She glared down at the sand, trying to take her mind off things again. She began tracing her finger in it, running it through the tiny, bumpy grains. It felt cold and hard beneath her fingertip, but she didn't really mind too much.

Slowly, and maybe even without fully realizing it, she found herself running her finger up and across the sand to form a long, wide curve, then brought it back down. She withdrew her finger for a moment, only to sink it back down into the sand, drawing a similar curve in the opposite direction. Without stopping, she connected the two curves at the bottom, and she didn't even have to think twice about it to realize what she'd just drawn.

A heart.

Kind of jagged, and a little uneven, but it was certainly a heart, nonetheless. She could feel her own heart pounding inside her chest, fast and hard, so fast and hard, in fact, that she could practically hear it ringing inside her ears.

She bit her lip as her eyes remained locked on the heart she'd just drawn. Why a heart? Why did she just draw a heart? She could've drawn a simple face, or a picture of a kid getting hit by a bus, or really anything besides a _heart._ It was just so girly. So unlike her.

Then again, though, maybe it did kind of make sense. After all, she hardly felt like herself right now.

She swallowed a lump that she hadn't even realized had been forming inside her throat this whole time. Blinking back the tears that were starting to form, she brought her hand to the left of the heart, where she began to write her name.

_SAM_

Before she knew what she was doing, she began writing another name on the opposite side of the small heart, a name that came out a bit more sloppily due to her trembling hand.

_FREDDIE_

She brought up her hand as she finished off the final letter, taking a moment to really _look_ at what she'd just written in the sand.

_'Sam heart Freddie,'_ she read literally, before translating it, _'I love Freddie.'_

Her teeth sank into her bottom lip as she blinked, causing the unwanted tears she'd been holding in to finally escape. She felt them roll down her cheeks, leaving behind damp, sticky trails on her face. She didn't bother wiping them off, though, since she knew more would be coming soon enough.

_'I hate him,'_ she thought. _'I hate him because I love him and he doesn't love me back.'_

It hurt. It hurt a lot, because it was the truth, and the truth sometimes just plain sucked. It sure did in this case.

Suddenly she wanted to see him. Right at that very moment. She wanted to call him names and do that double fist dance on his face that she'd promised him. She wanted to physically hurt _him_ for emotionally hurting _her_ so badly.

She just wanted to…

"Hey."

The voice shattered her entire world. Her heart stopped. Her eyes widened. She quickly, and hastily, rubbed the back of her hand against each of her eyes, wiping away the remaining tears that were threatening to fall out. Just as she turned her head, he plopped himself down on the sandy earth, taking a seat right next to her.

And then her breath hitched in her throat as she looked down in a panic, realizing that her little message was still there in plain sight for him to see. Not wanting to seem overly suspicious by moving too quickly, she tried her best to make it seem like she was still idly running her fingers through the sand. She ran a line through the message, smearing it completely.

"What do you want?" she finally asked, purposely making sure that her tone came off as angry and annoyed.

She kept running her finger back and forth through the cold sand, her gaze still fixed on the ground, not daring to look at him.

"Why'd you run away?" he asked.

The pace of her finger moving back and forth began slowing down then. She didn't say anything at first, taking a moment to really think about her answer. Should she make something up?

Or should she just tell the truth already?

She sighed.

"'Cause," was all she said, her voice unnaturally meek.

"'Cause why?" he persisted. God, he was so annoying.

"'Cause," she said again, then after a brief pause, she finally decided to just come clean already. "I was scared."

The word felt so weird to her as it left her mouth. _Scared._ She never truly felt scared of anything before. In fact, this was the first time in her life that she'd ever felt absolutely _terrified._

"Scared of what?" she heard him ask, and hearing his voice, which she'd expected would only make her feel more nervous and afraid, surprisingly made her feel relaxed.

Which was why, at that moment, she felt brave enough to finally look at him. She turned her head and looked him right in the eyes, and when she did, she felt those stupid butterflies explode inside her stomach again. Her cheeks grew hot, but she held the gaze, knowing that she couldn't chicken out now.

"Scared of getting rejected, okay?" she finally said, and the words spilled out of her so fast that her tone came out a bit harsher than she intended it to.

And then, just like that, her bravery crumbled, and she looked away from him again. She didn't want to start crying again.

_'Hold it together, Puckett,'_ she kept telling herself.

"Okay, did you _not_ listen at all to anything I said to you earlier?"

She blinked, surprised at his tone, and she looked at him again, but she said nothing.

"I already told you," he went on. "I mean, do you really think you're the _only_ person in the whole entire world who's scared of getting rejected? _Everyone_ is scared of that, Sam!" The way he said her name, so boldly, and with a touch of anger, caused her heart to jump and her eyes to widen again. She blinked, unsure of what to say.

"Well, then, go ahead," she dared him, and when he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, she had no choice but to specify. "Put _your_ feelings out there."

He narrowed his eyes, and she knew that he was silently accepting the challenge. She waited then. Waited for him to speak. But instead, she watched as he held up his index finger for a moment, before plummeting it into the sand. Her eyes dropped to watch him, watching as he began drawing a large, blunt F, and then an R, and an E, until eventually, he'd written out his name. Then, he moved his finger a few inches to the right and wrote out a big, curvy S, and then an A, and finally an M.

She stared at their two names in the sand, wondering just what the hell he was doing.

"Watch closely, Puckett," he said in that same bold tone that sent a shiver down her spine.

And so, she watched as he sank his finger right in the middle of the small space between their names. He drew a long, steep curve, and then another, forming a heart, and when he finished, Sam felt her own heart turn over inside her chest. She looked up at him, and the mischievous smile that graced his face caused her to practically lose it. She felt herself smile, too, and they stared at one another, smiling like idiots.

She tried to open her mouth to speak, but the words were caught in her throat. Any words she was about to say soon went flying out of her mind anyway, because the next thing she knew, he was leaning towards her, slowly.

Her instincts took over as she leaned towards him, too, meeting him halfway as their lips joined in a soft, sweet, _amazing_ kiss. Unlike the way she'd kissed him hours earlier, they each took their time with this kiss. It was slow, and gentle, and he was really _kissing_ her back, unlike when his lips were frozen in shock.

When they parted, they remained inches apart, their noses just barely touching one another.

"See?" he murmured against her lips. "That wasn't so scary, was it?"

And they kissed again.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Thanks for reading! :) Thoughts?


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